Finding Meaningful Work--and Finding meaning In Your Work

Gear , a photo by avrene on Flickr.

For the nine or more hours a day we devote to our jobs, we expect, even demand to find meaning in it. I’ve noticed lately that when people kvetch about their job dissatisfaction, they are shamed into changing the subject. Well-meaning friends and co-workers remind them that downsized execs they know are now selling lumber at Lowe’s. Eventually they stuff down their frustrations and are guilted into silence.

Should we just consider ourselves lucky to have a job these days?

If we take an academic approach to the quest for meaningful work, we find the usual answers (often found in books and Myers Briggs tests).  If you are guided by a kind of calling, you should be a priest or work in non-profit; maybe join the Peace Corp.  Those of you who want to help lives will find meaningful work in becoming doctors, teachers or policemen/women. Others that are creators will become artists, designers and architects. If you are a certain personality type, your test says that you should be in sales or leadership.

When the answer isn’t so black and white (and most of us can relate), consider another approach that allows you to find meaning in the work you already do. I’m all for reinventing your career, but in today’s precarious job market you may not have to abandon a career you’ve already invested in:

Take the time to investigate the mission of your company. On the surface, your job building computer hard-drives may seem to only benefit the company shareholders. But does your company donate laptops to children in impoverished countries? Is your organization developing technology that helps scientists detect cancer faster and cheaper? Look at the lives your work touches. You might find meaning in your work when you see your role as part of the bigger picture.

Learn a new skill. You may be in the same financial role for a number of years, and you’ve got a strong reputation for success. Can you build on what you already do well and take on bigger tasks? Get out of your comfort zone—lead a project, mentor a new employee or switch to a department where you can leverage your knack for numbers.

Make it personal and avoid fear-based career decisions. When you live from the inside out, you learn to understand what’s deeply satisfying to you. Eventually a pattern emerges—for example, you are naturally drawn to new cultures or you enjoy consulting work. Pinpoint that thing you do so well and focus on your natural talents. There’s no sense in swimming against the tide.

Do you beat yourself up over missed job opportunities? If you abandoned veterinary school because it didn’t feel right at the time, it probably wasn’t. Pragmatic jobs (often chosen by our parents) in the medical field or in teaching are wonderful choices, unless you are squeamish or impatient. Making fear-based career choices is like bargaining with the devil. Have faith in the choices you’ve made.

Focus on moments vs. accomplishments. Your annual review is largely based on a year of metrics and production results. In other words, your bonus and raise is largely dependent upon the projects you’ve completed. This is how the corporate world works—but it can suck the life out of finding joy in your work. If you don’t want to count the hours until the weekend arrives, while you are focusing on your accomplishments, try to find satisfaction in the daily mastery of your work. Remind yourself that you found a skill you are really, really good at. Appreciate that you made a co-worker’s job easier, or that a customer personally thanked you for your contribution.

Because at the end of the day, week, month or year, getting satisfaction out of completing a task well and delivering results makes our work and our lives meaningful. Being of service makes us feel good about ourselves.

Patience Vs. Action Is A Juggling Act

Juggling, a photo by andrewmalone on Flickr.

A friend of mine has a big decision to make. She was presented with a job offer that could add an interesting dimension to her career trajectory. But the job isn’t perfect. She isn’t sure if she should give up the secure one she is already in.

Patience vs. action is a juggling act. When a career opportunity presents itself, how inclined are you to act upon it?

Creativity can be snuffed out by too much inaction. You may have a brilliant business idea whose time has come, and a small window of time to execute it. In my friend’s case, you may have a tight deadline to accept the job offer.

But patience should not be interpreted as procrastination.  To consider the words of Lao Tzu: Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself? With patience, time allows details and alternative perspectives to rise to the surface. You might see possibilities that weren’t apparent before.

If you feel discomfort about not acting quickly, it’s probably your ego whispering in your ear, saying I’ve lost my edge as a great decision-maker or I need to be more resolute. The ego doesn’t care about the big picture. It cares more about winning the new job and proving to your current bosses that you can do better. The ego thrusts your attention toward winning the race of getting a new business idea to market. Avoid acting impulsively on this kind of advice.

Instead, ask yourself: By taking on the new job offer (or project)…am I moving toward my bigger goal, or am I simply running away from a situation I’m just not happy with? 

Here's another point to consider. It’s really tempting to let others make the decision for you. My colleague wants to get past the insecurity of making a potential mistake with her career. Should her family weigh in? Should I help her decide? Will it work itself out? Should she leave it to God?

Whether she decides to take the new job or not, it’s within all of us to appreciate a decision we’ve weighed for ourselves. I think that in the end, we want to know that we discovered the choice on our own. We need to use our own power to choose.

Perhaps the best thing to do is take small actions WHILE being patient. You can take incremental steps with your bigger goals in mind, and if you fail, you won't beat yourself up. This way, you'll still have your eye on what’s most important to you.

How Do You Identify Yourself?

name badges, a photo by juxtapozerz on Flickr.

On this celebration of Mother’s Day, I started thinking about the ways I define myself. I’m the mother of two beautiful children. I’m also a wife, an employee, a daughter and a friend.

In the context of the larger world, women are often conflicted about balancing work with family life. Statistics tell us that the brunt of household responsibilities still falls on women’s shoulders. But I think it’s safe to say that women like myself take pride in wearing a few name badges at once. In fact, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

But what happens when we suffer disappointments? As I get older (and hopefully wiser) I’m always looking for a better way of thinking. Lately I’ve been working on blurring the ways that I identify myself and I’ve been trying to live from the 

inside-out.

We have to love ourselves before anyone else can meet our needs, right? Living from the inside-out increases happiness because by doing so, we decide to live authentically.

And in the workplace, like a thin layer of armor, this powerful force carries us through job losses, missed promotional opportunities and lots of other setbacks.

There are plenty of work-related reasons to live from the inside-out. It makes sense that we need to stop aspiring to unattainable standards—like working twelve-hour days in order to get promoted. And we don’t have to be Road Warriors that travel constantly in order to prove ourselves worthy, either. We don’t have to be myopically single-minded to convince investors we can run a profitable company.

The alternative is scary. 

If I am what I do for a living, and I base my self-identity solely on what my superiors think of me, then—who am I if I no longer have that job?

It may sound airy-fairy, but I’d rather regard myself as a child of the Universe, bringing with that name badge all my strengths and all my imperfections to the world. I will not define myself through what I do for a living.

A child of the Universe. That’s how I will categorize myself. It’s hard—but I’m working on it.

I think women thrive on being counted-upon by bosses, spouses, children, friends and others at once. We enjoy wearing more than one name badge. The hard part is remembering to balance everyone else’s opinion of us with what we are inspired to be and to do.

Never lose sight of the desire that burns inside of you.

Happy Mother’s Day.

What's Really Driving Your Career?

This isn’t a blog post about rethinking your job choices because the economy tanked or what to do when other outside forces are at play. It’s about becoming aware of what drives your job choices in the first place.

I’ve always envied people who knew what they wanted to do for a living since they were five. Like kids who become scientists or engineers due to a deep inner calling, giving them plenty of time to nurture their craft because they figured it out so early.

I suspect most people just stumble into their career paths, like I did when I answered a NY Times ad one Sunday to become a Wall Street headhunter. 

Some will get that deeper calling.

But one thing I know for sure. Most career decisions are tripped up by our egos. It’s really hard to remove the ego from our career trajectory because ego, by its very definition, is how we separate ourselves. It’s what makes us special. It's how we differentiate our resume from others when we compete for the same jobs.

Like Seinfeld’s George Costanza, who admitted he would have married a girlfriend he hated just to prove that he could make a commitment, our egos can make us stumble.

·      Are you thinking of leaving your job because you see others progressing more rapidly around you?

·      Do you defend your own bad decisions? Is it more important to be right than to fix a problem at work?

·      Do you grandstand to show off your talents?

You might consider a job change because you’ve been passed over for a promotion. Maybe you are comparing your track record to someone else who moved up the ladder, even though his sales numbers or metrics weren’t as strong as your own. But remind yourself that these comparisons with colleagues can be misleading. It might be only part of the picture. Your need to defend your ego and your drive to win makes you forget that he might possess other necessary talents you don’t have (soft skills, cultural fit, a knack with presentations) that got him promoted. Do you really see the whole picture?

If you’re the boss, are you holding onto a bad employee because you were the one that convinced the company to hire them and you don’t want to admit you made a bad decision? This may be hindering your own development.

Our egos are notorious for giving us selective hearing. Maybe you’re an employee who got a less-than-favorable annual review this year. Granted, many companies create bell curves for performance evaluations, preventing salary increases for many. Your manager may have to justify why you didn’t get a raise. But as you sift through your manager’s feedback, there are likely morsels of truth about your performance that are genuine. Don’t let your ego make you ignore these.

Grandstanding is the most obvious display of our ego in the workplace. Remember that it is a pattern that cannot be sustained. Showing off your wins and monopolizing the conversation at teammeetings will wear you out. It will wear out others around you, too.

So how do you make career decisions from the right place? Remember that ego is a needed part of our psyche and we shouldn’t completely ignore it. It’s where we derive our inspiration and our desires—for work and every other area of our lives.

But for starters, we know we make a good career choice when the decision feels physically good. When you tell the important people in your life what you do for a living, or where you work, is your body relaxed? Are you at peace?

Or do you get a clammy feeling in the pit of your stomach? If you tell everyone you are leaving your job, do you feel a restlessness?

Maybe it’s because you think the new company would look better on your resume.

Most important, are you moving toward a better career, or are you really running away from something, instead?

Ego focuses on pride. 

The I vs. the We. 

Earning, acquiring. Getting.

Separating us from others. 

That’s our ego at work. It will always play a role in our career decisions, but don’t let it overwhelm you. Awareness is the best way to keep it from controlling you.

Big head, a photo by xJason.Rogersx on Flickr.